A Fun(gal) Photo Quiz

Winter is coming. So it is time to take care of the surviving plants. Some outdoor plants get moved inside, some indoors plants go out, some get replanted, etc. (location – central North Carolina)

What we noticed in one of them is a sprouting of a few small but pretty mushrooms from the soil. So, question is: what is this fungus? Did the spores come from the air or were they already in the soil? If in soil, why did they wait so long to grow out of the soil and show up?